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Planning to Have Fun

If template designers were scientists, I'd be a white-frocked and absent-minded head of research at a university lab. Guest-poster John Norris, on the other hand, would be the wild-eyed and frizzle-haired loony hoisting his creation up to the array of lightning rods atop the castle roof. We all should have such checks and balances. -DJ

OK, OK, obviously DIYPlanner.com is all about productivity. However, there are many spheres in which one may be productive. For corporate work, it's meetings, to-do's and contacts. However, maybe you're a poet, choreographer or sculputor and need to be productive artistically. These areas would have corresponding templates that may be quite different from corporate work.

Let's push further. "Productivity" is not merely efficiency: it commonly brings with it a positive, qualitative, meaning. Hipsters can address quality of life issues. Games, ice-breakers, puzzles, etc., can add to one's simple enjoyment of life. You're carrying it everywhere, so why not include enough distractions so you will Get Nothing Done (TM), but have fun anyway?

DIYPlanner.com is also about planning. However, where's the fun in being a slave to your planner? Make it help you as well. Your hipster can be a real tool... "tool" as in "hammer" and not "taskmaster".

So what might a hipster be in order to address productivity issues for one's artistic side and life quality? How do you print out a tool, an instrument, that can help you live?

Pushing the Envelope Right Out of the Box

I've been looking at two types of templates that go right to the heart of the quality of life and helpful tool issues. I think they hold great promise to really blow this whole thing wide open. I'll call them Reference Materials and Paper Craft.

Reference Materials: Knowledge at Hand (or Hip!)

Reference materials in a hipster are tools to help me enhance my life. Some templates don't tell me what to do, but allow me to pursue my desires. They also let me share more easily with others.

There are all sorts of things I wish I knew or could share. Personally, I may need to know how to spell certain words, various algorithms, or how to tie my necktie (I keep instructions in my little used suit pocket.) Alternatively, I might mark up a star map to instruct someone where a celestial object resides, or I may draw on a temperature graph that I'll give to someone who is firing a raku kiln.

Here is raw content of this type that is ripe for someone's back pocket:

Look at the paper as an object itself, a material, and not merely a place for data storage. Your hipster can provide you with all sorts of actual items. You can have templates that can be cut up to be a deck of cards, or finger puppets for a play, or a working slide rule (just to take some examples from my own stack). These are tools that can help your artistic side as well as your quality of life.

There is a host of information about paper craft, or the book arts, on the Internet. Here are a few to get some ideas flowing:

Syndicate

The D*I*Y Planner product, its name, and its associated designs are owned by Douglas Johnston. Other materials remain the property of their authors and are subject to whatever licenses under which they choose to release them.